


Amor Fati

by iruusu



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Character Study, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iruusu/pseuds/iruusu
Summary: In a world with no use for kings nor magi, Judal has never felt more alone. It’s only the rumors of a certain king’s return to the world that reignite his sense of purpose; however, it is the fate he so desperately abhors that brings Sinbad back into Judal’s life, and he finally begins to understand the love of fate.





	Amor Fati

**Author's Note:**

> its been so long....... i really miss posting new fics !! and i've honestly been daydreaming about this au for literally 8 months?? and not writing it??
> 
> i felt that a post canon fic was something that i really wanted to do as well as something i could do well, even though i was really sad when i wrote this. the way that magi ended was really unfortunate, but i think ive come to accept it, and i still love magi!! all i know is that i don't plan on stopping any time soon.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy!

Six months after Judal’s world fell apart, he began to hear the rumors. 

It began with little things. Quiet, scandalous whispers amongst the common people, nothing that the royals would bother themselves with, but Judal had, after a while, begun to count himself as more parts common than royal. And now that he was no longer a magi, he was royal even less so. Kougyoku was Empress, and she could say whatever she pleased about how he’d always be dear to her, but Judal knew deep down, whether genuine or not, that a man without political influence did not matter, especially not now. Magi or commoner, it meant nothing anymore. In a world without djinn, without rukh, without _power_ , a man was nothing without lineage.

There was no place for Judal in Rakushou, though it remained his place of residence, and he _was_ still Kou’s oracle, empty as the title felt—more ceremonial than anything. But as he spent more hours out of the palace than in it, it was amidst the disoriented crowds that Judal began to hear the rumors. The peasants, bored with their unchanged circumstances, whispered of a man who’d washed ashore a fishing village at the tip of the empire’s southern peninsula, a man with skin of gold and hair of royal violet, a man who’d flown too close to the sun and drowned in his beloved seas when foolish pride had failed him.

Sinbad had ruined his life, but that didn’t mean Judal would scoff at the thought of his return. Sinbad had stripped Judal of his power, his livelihood, his agency, had reduced him to little more than a palace beggar, and all in pursuit of his own selfish greed. It was Sinbad who had hated him, who had cast him aside despite the way Judal’s heart ached in the face of his cruelty, who had turned a blind eye to the years of abuse that had shaped Judal into the bitter, vengeful young man he was now; all of it was Sinbad.

Sinbad deserved to be dead, Judal thought, belatedly. Sinbad deserved everything that came to him, all of the suffering of a maddening eternity trapped in the rukh that no longer loved its magi. It was a fitting end for a man who’d craved freedom and adventure. Sinbad deserved to feel helpless for a change, the same way Judal felt when he’d turned on him as a child, a _child_ branded a villain for the actions of an organization that had abused and manipulated his miserable little life from his first, pathetic breaths.

Judal was a shell of the person he used to be—whatever _that_ was—and it was all Sinbad’s fault. 

“They found the old man,” said Judal one night, softly, over a late night meal with the weathered first prince.

Hakuryuu and Kougyoku were often too busy with stately affairs to entertain Judal, always too preoccupied repairing the nation’s fractured infrastructure (another one of Sinbad’s lovely _gifts,_ Judal couldn’t help but think with a sneer) to bother with Judal. At the same time, he couldn’t blame them. But Kouen, grown too old and too tired for politics, always had the time to humor Judal’s many whims, even despite how Judal had betrayed him so, so long ago. Judal wished he could’ve been half as forgiving.

“Hm?” Kouen hummed, swirling his drink with his left—flesh—hand. If anything good had come of this disaster, it was that Kouen had regained his body in its whole, and had finally forgone hobbling over his withered wooden limbs in their absence. Judal was not a magi anymore, but he still had certain, meager abilities, including the healing techniques a blue magician was born to perform. And in a rare, uncharacteristic act of good will, Judal made it so that Kouen’s lost limbs were finally, _finally_ returned.

The limbs weren’t entirely functional, not as they’d been before. They weren’t strong enough for a proud warlord, not for an emperor—as he wasn’t.  (Life magic had never been Judal’s suit, he explained, and these were more like cloaked glamour than true flesh and blood.) But they worked well enough, and Kouen was grateful. Although lost limbs did nothing to repair the dark circles under his aging eyes, at least Judal could give him this. ”I’m right here, Judal. I’m hurt that you didn't notice sooner.”

Judal felt exasperation bubbling his chest, and he huffed, incredulous. “Not _you!_ The other old man!”

Kouen couldn't hide the shadow of a smile as it crossed his features. “Ah,” he said, finally. “Your idiot king, I take it?”

Judal made a face, then snatched a slice of pear from his plate and crushed it between his teeth. “Not mine,” he insisted, mouth full and cheeks bulging with childish impudence. “And he's not a king anymore. Still an idiot, though.”

“I’d hope so.”

Lips tugged into a frown, Judal leaned forward onto his elbows, brow creased in thought. “Well?” he asked, tactless as ever. “Don’t you have a feud with him, or something?”

The words made Kouen laugh, a deep rumble under his breath, a sound that warmed Judal’s stomach in a place he’d forgotten he still had. “I wouldn't say we had a _feud._ That makes it seem so petty.”

It _was_ petty, but Judal had no fight left in him, so he acquiesced with a suffering sigh. “Ugh, fine.” Judal rolled his eyes. “What would you prefer?”

Kouen thought for a moment, and then said, “a rivalry. We were rivals at best, enemies at worst, but I think that's all in the past now. Besides, aren't I the victor if he's dead?”

Judal made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “That's the point. They _found him.”_

“Who did?”

“I don't know. Some hick fishermen in the south. Does it matter?”

“It does to you, doesn't it?” said Kouen, eyeing Judal from behind his glass. “You're going to see him. Aren’t you?”

Judal could have choked, but to do so would've been classless and unsightly and he wasn't in the mood to waste such a delectable peach on either embarrassment. After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, “why should I?"

Kouen gave him a helpless, almost pitying look. “Well. You brought it up?”

“Yeah,” Judal sputtered, swelling with incredulity, “but I don't _want_ to see him! The idiot’s probably dead anyways, and I don't want to waste my time with some lame funeral.”

“You're already dressed for the occasion,” said Kouen with laughter in his eyes. “And here I thought you loved death and destruction.”

Judal stuck out his tongue, and though he was twenty-three he must've looked like such a child, the same as he was years and years ago, persevering through the childhood he’d never gotten to live. “Not when it's this boring,” Judal complained, glancing away. “A guy like that with such a lame ending? Tch.” Judal played with the lone green vegetable on his plate, and Kouen had the decency not to scold him for it. “I have better things to do than put on my mourning gown and wet my eyes for some misguided old fool.”

“And what do you have to do, dear magi? Hm?” Ah. Judal supposed that even status would mean nothing to Kouen, too wrapped up in his own sentimentality to embrace the changing tides. Judal supposed that he would always be _dear magi,_ to Kouen. The man leaned forward and rested his elbows atop the table, lips curving with a weak smile. “Waste your life away to entertain an old man like me?”

“I’m not _wasting_ anything _,”_ Judal muttered, but that was just it, wasn’t it? What had Judal done, since the final battle? He was stagnating. He hadn’t grown or changed, even as the world shaped itself around him, without him. There was no place for Judal in a world with no magi, in a world where the song of the rukh meant nothing to anyone, not even him.

“I’m not.” Judal was _rotting,_ and it was all because of that terrible, _terrible_ old man. “I’m…”

Judal did not cry, had forgotten how, but even still it was all rushing back, harder and faster and stronger than before, and he didn't cry but how he _wished_ he had the energy for it. Judal didn’t matter; he was as good as dead to the world. Judal wasn’t a magi, and he had no king to devote himself, no cause to die for. Sinbad had left Judal empty and rotting in a world he didn’t want to live in, and now the old fool had the audacity to come _back_ to rub the reality of it in his face _._

“I hate him,” Judal managed, voice strained with unshed, forgotten tears. He could feel Kouen watching as he put a hand to his pounding head, could feel the lone tear slip (unbidden) down his cheek, but couldn't find it in himself to look up. “I hate him _so much.”_

Kouen had never seen Judal this way before, balancing on the precipice of tears, not since he was very small, when things were very different. But he was trying, at least, even if his instincts were faltering, and Judal would've appreciated the effort were it not for the way his own blood boiled red hot with shame.

“You don't have to see him,” said Kouen quietly, cautiously. He placed his hand—warm, deceiving—upon Judal’s shuddering shoulder. “It’s alright if you don't.”

Judal nodded, though blinded by the hazy film of unshed tears, and silenced his cries with a grimace past grit teeth. “I don't want to see him,” he sniffed, swiping at his eyes. “I don't want to see him _ever_ again.”

It was this mantra that Judal told himself time after time again. He didn't want to see Sinbad. Sinbad had only ever brought Judal pain, and this would be no different no matter what happened. But Judal was self-destructive in nature, and even now, he had a taste for stupid, reckless things and stupid, reckless men.  


* * *

  
Judal had always been poor at disguises. 

Most of the time, running off to Sindria to prattle his childish wants to the stupid old man, Judal didn’t even bother with a disguise. His looks were enough to distract the guards for long enough to get where he was going, and with a wink and an impish smile, they’d only realized who he was after it was too late.

But this time, Judal was feeling a bit shy, or perhaps reserved, or maybe, grudgingly, a bit humble. Judal was no longer a proud magi, barely an oracle, but mostly a boy who was tired of hurting and being left behind. So he wore a cloak to hide his pale face and long hair, with plain, unmarked fabric of the same, dark hue he supposed a mourning gown would be. Judal hated himself for the very thought.

It hadn’t been hard to track the old fool down, or at least, where Judal thought he might have been. Once upon a time he would’ve followed the rukh’s song to the idiot’s final resting place, but the rukh was not an option anymore, and it never would be. Even so, it wasn’t hard to follow word of mouth, gossip among the common people, for Sinbad loved being the center of attention, even once he wasn’t around to hear the world sing his praises.

Judal supposed that Sinbad would have been happier dead, if that were really the case. Not for any noble purpose, really, but these days the rumors of his legacy were no longer kind. There had always been an air of reverence when the common people spoke of Sinbad’s lore, and the traces were there still, but perhaps more than that there was disdain, a collective dislike for the foolish, arrogant young king who had set the world ablaze. Alibaba and Aladdin in all of their naivety could act like the world was better off this way, without djinn or magi to defend it, but the change was slow to take root in the minds of the people who depended on it.

Sinbad had destroyed the world’s order. Borders were in shambles, land was redrawn, and families were torn apart all in thanks to the re-emerging powers’ competitive lines on a map. Things would never be the same, and while normalcy might return someday, there was no force upon the ruined earth that could bring back those lives that had already returned to the rukh—lives that _Sinbad_ had returned to the rukh. No matter how much better things were said to be now, the world was still weeping, and Sinbad was at fault for it all.

Sinbad was certainly not held in positive regards, at least not in Kou. Judal couldn’t care less of what they said in Sindria; Drakon and his council were probably making a hero of him to excuse the king’s criminal behavior and maintain his public image, even in death. The old fool always needed someone to clean up after his messes, and for once, Judal was maybe a little glad that he didn’t have to. Sinbad had never accepted his offers, so Judal had no obligation to him.

And yet there was Judal, standing at the gates of a crumbling fishing village at the southern tip of Kou. It was impossible to know what it had looked like before Sinbad had made his mess of the world, but this place seemed like it would always have been beyond help, regardless of whether the idiot had stuck his nose into things that did not concern him. Perhaps that was why they had welcomed him, dead or alive, because Sinbad’s meddling would have meant nothing here. Or maybe these people were just too uneducated to know an international war criminal even when looking him straight in the face.

It wasn’t difficult to enter past the gates. The rural peoples were too polite to turn anyone away, welcoming weary travelers with a warm smile and an even warmer meal, and it left Judal with an aching want of the village he’d never gotten to call home. Judal couldn’t help but wonder how they’d fared in the state of the world; he’d been too ashamed to ask. But the kindness of this place was familiar in a homely sort of way, so Judal welcomed it all with a thin-lipped smile and an awkward farce of gratitude.

“I’m looking for a man,” said Judal, once he’d eaten his fill. “Dark hair, yellow eyes? He’s… ah, an old friend of mine.”

The response was all kind eyes and eager, toothy smiles. Sinbad, it seemed, was well-known wherever he went, even to those who did not know his name.

Judal followed an elderly woman to Sinbad’s supposed resting place—not a grave, but an inn. Dilapidated from disuse, it was far from the splendor of the Sindrian palace that Judal had once dreamed he’d call home. It was what Sinbad deserved, he told himself, even as he braced himself over the creaking of rotten, wooden steps.

“Do be careful when you go in,” Judal was advised, prior to his entrance. “The poor man is still sleeping. He’s been through so much, he’ll have to rest to make a full recovery.”

Recovery. Judal didn't ask, didn't care, and when he was finally left alone by the door, all Judal wanted was to kick it in hard enough to alert the whole village in hopes that maybe, just _maybe,_ it'd make him feel better.

Judal did not do that, because it wouldn't. Instead he slowly, carefully slid open the _shōji_ , and quietly stepped inside.

Sinbad laid so peacefully upon the bed, with such an air of serenity about him, something so terribly silent without the hum of dark and white rukh clouding the air above him. The afternoon light draped over his sleeping form, graced the sheen of his hair with an otherworldly glow, skimmed the warmth of his skin with a positively blinding gold. Sinbad was patched with heavy bandages, wound around the thickness of his arms and stretched across his broad chest, and yet his breath rose and fell as if nothing were amiss.

Even without the brunt of his power, Judal had insurmountable stealth. He stepped forward with practiced feline grace, featherlike and delicate, and with the shift of his weight a floorboard creaked, and Sinbad stirred.

All of Judal’s carefully calculated plans were lost on him, and he surged forward, bare feet slamming the hardwood as he threw himself atop Sinbad’s slowly waking body. Judal recognized a sound, a slurred, disgruntled protest, and in a panic, fitted his hands around the girth of Sinbad’s throat.

It wasn’t clean. Judal had, in the past, struck his enemies down with a devastating display of ability, with the raw power of a magi. Now, he had only his hands, uncalloused and soft, and a man twice his size struggling beneath him.

Sinbad was bruised, battered, and bandages soured the gold of his skin. Even still, it took seconds for Sinbad to overpower him. Strong, war-worn hands tore at Judal’s knotted hair, and that was enough to send him down onto his back with a strangled sob. In a second, Sinbad was over him, heaving as he felt at new bruises to his throat, and Judal laid beneath him, breathless, wide-eyed, and vulnerable.

“What are you doing here,” Sinbad managed, wide eyed, raw and torn even from a grip as weak as Judal’s. “Why—Why did you come here?”  
  
Sinbad was dangerously close. A hand was still in his hair, and the other flat against the bed, inches from his throat. Judal swallowed. “At least I _came._ That’s more than anyone else would do.”

It was likely something that hadn’t occurred to Sinbad; Judal knew from his silence. It gave Judal the opportunity to look at him, to _really_ look at him. There was a deep, hollow sadness to his eyes, less gold than bronze, dim and nothing like the sun. Without his vessels there was a nakedness to him, a vulnerability, even despite the prowess of his shifting muscles, like a lion laying in wait. Dark hair spilled over a bandaged shoulder, and tickled Judal’s exposed collarbone. Judal’s breath hitched.

When he returned to himself Sinbad pressed on, and Judal didn’t cry when he yanked his head back. “You need to leave.”

“You’re a coward,” Judal spat, “hiding out here after what you did to the world. After what you did to _me.”_

Sinbad’s laughter didn’t reach his eyes, and he pushed off of Judal, who went scrambling upright once freed. He could have gone in again. Sinbad was tired, still short of breath, it would be too easy this time to reach up and grab his strong neck, to press shaking thumbs against the hollow of his throat until Sinbad truly _felt_ the numbness that Judal had resigned to himself. It would be over in seconds. Judal did not move.

“It’s nothing personal, _sweetheart,_ ” said Sinbad, when he did not move. Judal bristled. “This is just how it had to be.”

Judal didn’t take the time to figure out what that meant. “Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that.” It tasted bitter, like a mouthful of acid, but Judal didn’t back down. “My life is ruined and it’s your fault.”

“Then why are you here?” It was supposed to be mean, to be threatening; Judal could hear the overwhelming effort in those words. But beneath that he could hear the sad inkling of hope that maybe the world hadn’t abandoned Sinbad yet, that maybe, if Judal of all people wondered where he was, then there were others, and things could go back to the way they were before. “You should leave. You didn’t have to come.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to spit on your grave? I  think I deserve it, after this.”

Sinbad pondered that for a moment, and Judal felt the subdued golden gaze washing over him, studying him, the first familiar face in months. Sinbad laughed a little, under his breath, at the absurdity of it all, that Judal—cruel, stupid, ignorant Judal—was the only one who cared enough to pay his respects.

“Yeah,” said Sinbad, as he ran a hand through matted hair. “Maybe you do.”

It would have been so much easier if Sinbad didn’t wake up. It would have been so much easier to kill him while he was sleeping, before he could protest, before he could talk Judal out of it with those stupid, charming eyes and stupid, mirthless smile. Judal wanted to hit him, wanted to strangle him, wanted to silence Sinbad and all of his crimes once and for all, but it wouldn’t have done any good. Judal had already been poisoned by Sinbad and his smiles and his warmth, even when he was in his most diminutive state, even after everything. It would have been so much easier to kill him if he hadn’t opened his eyes.

“I do,” Judal agreed. No one would have faulted him for killing Sinbad; he would have been praised for it, and Judal _missed_ praise. “But I’m not really a killer anymore, so I guess I’ll just have to wait for someone else to finish the job for me.”

“Really,” said Sinbad. His smile was wry, almost pitying, and Judal felt the frustration bubbling at the back of his throat. “I thought that’s why you came.”

Judal felt warmth rise to his face when he realized his mistake, hot embarrassment burning his ears. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?” he huffed, gaze averted. This was a mistake. Judal had risked too much for this, and in turn had received nothing but grief. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“But you did,” said Sinbad. “And how do you expect to just go back to Kou, knowing that I’m alive?”

“Easily,” said Judal, tossing his head. “It’s none of my concern.”

“You’d be a traitor,” said Sinbad. “Even the Empress can’t take you back like this, not with the social upheaval and a throne she can’t defend. You’ll rot in prison.”

“You’re wrong,” said Judal, caught in a derisive sneer with words like venom. “You don’t know what she’s capable of.” Kougyoku wouldn’t abandon him, not like everyone else. Hakuryuu wouldn’t. But then, they had been so busy preserving the empire, clinging to the scraps of autocracy. The people wanted a republic. A traitor for an imperial priest would all but give it to them.

“I do,” said Sinbad. “And she’d put the scraps of her crumbling empire before you, any day.”

Judal stopped, and looked at him. In Sinbad’s eyes there was no glean of mockery nor mischief, but rather the empty, hardened gaze of a man broken and desperate to claw back to glory. It wasn’t something entirely unfamiliar.

“I’m leaving,” said Judal, as he rose abruptly to his feet. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I am tired and I have seen enough.” He paused for brief thought, and then a mutter: “this world is no place for a magi, anyways.”

“So you’re just giving up,” said Sinbad, after a while. “You’ve come all this way just to give up?”

Judal scoffed. “I’ve already given up on you a long time ago, so don’t worry about it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Judal stopped. He fixed Sinbad with a tight-lipped smile, and shrugged. “I’ve given up on you, I’ve given up on everything. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like—like I have anywhere else to go.”

“You really think that?” It was Sinbad’s turn to stand, and—ah, perhaps Judal had forgotten just how _large_ Sinbad was. Despite whatever time and grudges and wars had separated them, Sinbad had retained his broad, strapping physique, and when he rose to his full height Judal was reminded, briefly, of what a fool he was to challenge him.

“I don’t know what to think,” Judal managed, lowering his gaze. “I’m just—I’m tired. I’m tired and I want to rest. I don’t want to live like this.”

“What,” Sinbad sneered, “like me?”

The floorboards creaked when he stepped closer, and Judal flinched and drew back, as if it were instinct. At the sight of his wide eyes, Sinbad’s features lost a sliver of their menace.

“If that’s what you want to think,” Judal murmured, after a while.

“Look,” said Sinbad, “I don’t trust you, or anything like that. And I know I’m not your favorite person.”

Judal paused, for a moment, but realization darkened bristling features. “You—You aren’t doing this right now.” There were years and wars and slights between them, things that Judal could never forgive, things that could never be rectified. This was what Judal had longed for since his earliest years, what he’d dreamed of, to be wanted by Sinbad. But Judal wasn’t a child anymore, bright eyed and unfallen, and now the mere insinuation of it was enough to make him sick. “You can’t. Not after everything.”

“I don’t see other options.” Sinbad spoke in the most analytical terms, as though all of the morality and righteousness he used to treasure meant nothing. Judal felt sickness in his stomach. “I’m not as strong as I used to be. Traveling alone would be suicide, for both of us.”

Judal’s face boiled. “Then die! This world doesn’t care for either of us anymore! We’re relics of a dead system. It doesn’t matter!”

“I know your old village is somewhere in the mountains. I’ll take you there if you help me get where I’m going.”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk so rationally,” Judal snarled, but the curl of his lips was wobbly, trying desperately not to fall. “Don’t you dare try to make this sound so easy.” And yet in spite of his sneer, Judal knew that the words held truth. Sinbad was a negotiator, a businessman first and a king second (although, now, Judal supposed he was neither). Judal, on his quest to find Sinbad’s remains, had run his pockets empty. To survive on his own would be impossible. To survive, even with Sinbad, would be a miracle.

“Trust me,” Sinbad sneered, “you’re not my first choice.” And with that it was as though Judal were fourteen again, sobbing into his hands under the weight of rejection after rejection after rejection had become too much to bear. The sting had never quite gone away, and Judal felt the blow in his chest. “But look, you’re all I’ve got, and I don’t see you with many friends either. This is it, Judal.” Sinbad outstretched his bandaged arms, managing a smirk in spite of his grimace. “For now, at least, I’m all you have left.”

It was cruel, and it was unfair. This wasn’t the way that things were supposed to happen, and yet here was Sinbad—this conniving, shell of a man—offering himself to Judal at long last. With Hakuryuu, it had been easy to resist him, but now Judal was vulnerable and completely alone under the weight of Sinbad’s thumb.

“Just to the mountains,” Judal began, slow and unsure, as though each syllable were a dagger to the heart. “And no further.”

At long last, Sinbad’s smile grew, but in it lacked the warmth Judal had once so desperately craved, and he felt nothing. “Just to the mountains,” Sinbad agreed, offering Judal a hand. “And you’ll never have to see me again.”

Sinbad was supposed to be dead, and now they were making a deal. Judal felt sick to his stomach.

Meeting Sinbad’s hand with a hesitant clasp, Judal managed, “I would love nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> i look forward to writing more soon, and feedback is always appreciated!


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